Together we will all emerge as winners
Dan Tackett
I spotted Bob Sheley immediately after entering the automotive repair garage that bears his name in northwest Lincoln. He’s spent the bulk of his working life in that shop.
It was before 7 a.m. on one of this cold snap’s barely bearable frigid days. I was thankful and a bit surprised when a blast of toasty air smacked me in the face when I opened the door. I halfway had feared the sizeable repair shop, with its high ceilings to accommodate vehicles on hoists, would be colder than a you-know-what.
Celebrating true love even in this frigid weather
Dan Tackett
As you read this, my wife Suzi and I will be on the eve of our 35th anniversary.
Yep, 35 years. Who’d a thunk it?
In observance thereof, Mother Nature is throwing us a curve ball, a big test. According to the old gal’s local spokesman – the National Weather Service in Lincoln – the high temperature on Valentine’s Day, our anniversary, will be 3 degrees. That’s the high temperature. As in, the warmest it’s going to get. That’s not all. North winds are expected to blow steady from 9 to 13 mph. Wind gusts of 21 mph are not outside the realm of possibility. Can you imagine the wind chill those breezes will produce?
Dan Tackett
The mid-1970s brought unimaginable horror and unmasked evil to Lincoln. It was a time when Russell Smrekar and Michael Drabing became household names, spoken in quiet voices at the dinner table, in angry rants at barber shops and taverns.
Smrekar was convicted of the shotgun slayings of a young Lincoln couple in their home. Drabing was sent to prison for the stabbing deaths of a rural Lincoln farm couple and one of their daughters. People who lived in Logan County at the time undoubtedly still remember their names and the bloody carnage they caused.
Mike Harnett, a Lawrence, Kan., resident, certainly recalls the horror of the time. Those indelible memories led Harnett to write a book, “And I Cried, Too: Confronting Evil In A Small Town.” It was not an overnight project.
Laura Elliott
The making of new year resolutions has been a ritual for some 4,000 years. The Babylonians are said to have been the first to do so and also the first recorded to hold new year celebrations. Back then, the new year began in mid-March, instead of January, when the crops were planted. Spring has always made more sense to me for a new beginning, and was the case for a long while until circa 46 BC when Julius Caesar came along and established January 1st as the new year. More fascinating facts on the past can easily be found if you care to dig a little further.